Ties That Bind
by Gandalf3213
Summary: Eighteen years ago, Joshua went on a hunt alone to try to get away from his pregnant wife. Now, during a supposedly "safe" campout, his son gets injured and is struggling for his life. How do the two time periods intertwine? Brotherhood AU
1. Chapter 1

**Ties That Bind**

**A/N: We've been wanting to take the Brotherhood on a joy ride for a year or so now, so thanks so much to Ridley for allowing us the use of her great OCs. **

.***.

_"Grief is the price we pay for love." **Elizabeth II**_

.***.

It was a call that Dean had never wanted to make. He looked again at Max. Even in a hospital he could still imagine the teen's body covered in blood, the way he, Caleb, and Sam had found him.

So he cleared his throat and manned up, punching in numbers he now knew by heart, a natural repercussion of Joshua being the Advisor, of course, but also of the friendship between his middle son and Max. "Joshua?" He said, trying to control his voice as he talked into the speaker. "I have some bad news."

**Twelve Hours Before**

Max grinned and surged ahead of Ben, getting enough distance to bring his right leg back to kick the ball between the two trees that they had marked as 'goal'. He turned around, fist pumping the air in triumph, and turned it into a high-five halfway through so he could slap his teammate, JT.

"No fair!" The whine was more than slightly annoying, but Max had to grin as James jogged up to them. He'd been waiting for the inevitable 'no fair' since he'd stolen the ball from the youngest Winchester boy. "You tripped me!"

Now James was even with Max, his finger pointing accusingly at the older boy, who swiped his hair back with one hand and grinned at JT, a grin that said _we knew this would happen. _Ever since James had turned thirteen he'd been unstably hormonal to such a degree that Max had taken to calling him bipolar – sweet and childish one second and arrogant and whiny the next.

"You're just jealous 'cause I'm faster than you, Jimmy." What they had really wanted to play was baseball, which seemed to run in all three boys' blood, but Ben, the necessary player to make the teams even, had vetoed the game in light of the three windows and mailbox the boys had broken with foul balls. So soccer it was.

James huffed, crossing his arms. "Only because you're older. And it's _James_." He turned away, muttering under his breath about how it was so hard for his brothers – and his uncles and father and mother and brother's best friend, for that matter – to remember a simple, one-syllable name.

Ben chose this time to intervene. He'd returned to the farm for the weekend because the boys had begged to be allowed to camp during their last week of summer vacation. Dean, Caleb, and Sam had refused on the grounds that there would be no one in the area of the farm, since they had a hunt (the first one in months, and they were treating it as more of a vacation, a time to re-connect over an old pastime. Oh, hunting was dangerous, but there was also no other rush in the world. Drugs and alcohol had nothing on taking down a few good ol' fashioned spirits) And Juliet and Carolyn had taken the opportunity of a husband free weekend to wheedle Mac into taking their daughters for a few days while they had a girls' night out in New York.

Which left Ben as a mostly-involuntary babysitter for teenagers who felt like they didn't need adult supervision. To his credit, they'd already told Ben that he was better than Riley or Bobby, who would sometimes "drop by" the farm whenever the Triad found a hunt. Being babysat by a brother was better than a couple of grouches who wished the hunt was theirs.

JT, always careful, looked to the darkening sky. It wasn't a stormy color, just not the blue haze that had held master over most of the summer so far. "We should get the tent set up before it starts to rain."

Ben put his hands up instantly. "Look, I may have been strong-armed into coming out here, even though I have three applications for Fellowships that I still have to complete, but I'm not helping you set up a tent."

"We weren't asking." Max retorted, sounding so much like Caleb in that instant that even he was taken aback. Ben raised one eyebrow, wondering, not for the first time, about the circular nature of the Triad. Were they picked because they inherently possessed the necessary qualities for the Knight, Scholar, and Guardian, or did the qualities get adopted once the decision for the Triad was made? Chicken or the egg?

The tent took a half hour to set up, and Ben ended up out by the lake anyway, making sure that the structure was erected in a spot he could easily see from the upstairs window of Pastor Jim's old farmhouse, far enough away so the boys wouldn't think they were being watched every minute.

Ben remembered how it was being a teen and thinking you had no life, no privacy, no fun. He'd been in favor of this campout from the first time it was mentioned (back in February with snow on the ground.) Sometimes you just had to dole out trust and hope that the recipients would rise to the occasion.

Right now, of course, the three were arguing about exactly what would be allowed in the tent for the night. Hot dogs and s'mores ingredients were a must, of course, but lines were being drawn against everything else.

"You are not bringing a First Aid Kit." James protested, rolling his eyes as the familiar, battered orange box was placed among sleeping bags and marshmallows.

Max didn't particularly like it, either, thinking that the Band-Aids and antiseptic might just be asking for trouble, on the other hand… "It's like bringing an umbrella when it's cloudy. It never rains."

"Speaking of rain…" JT looked at the sky warily, as if just the mention of the word would send the sky tumbling down.

"No umbrellas!" James said, annoyed. They were camping three hundred yards from the house, on the far, rocky edge of the lake. It could hardly be described as "roughing it". And they weren't going to bring any umbrellas.

"Yeah," Max put in, for once on James' side. "No umbrellas." Then he turned to the youngest, "And no books."

"Hey! This is quality reading here."

"Ugly nerd."

"Illiterate jerk." James turned away, breathing hard. He knew that it was one of the conditions for this camp out, that the older boys would have to suffer him along. It was more than a little annoying to know that he wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for the Guardian's directive to 'play nice.'

In typical fashion, he lashed out at the next thing that came even near to annoying him. "JT, really? A camera?"

"Show some respect, Jimmy, it's not just any camera." The look JT gave to the object was one of unholy infatuation. "She's special."

"Ugh." Max said, punching his best friend's shoulder playfully. "She's _so_ going back to the farmhouse with Ben."

Here Ben put up his hands again, unwilling to get in the middle of a little healthy, future-Triad rivalry. "I'm not a pack mule, guys, this is between you all." He needed to get back to those applications, which involved an ungodly amount of writing the same information over…and over…and over.

Another fight seemed brewing, and Ben figured this was as good a time as any to make his way back to the house. "Don't scream unless you're dying," were his parting words, though he wasn't sure if he could be heard over the bickering.

"Have fun in the woods."

**Eighteen Years Before**

"Fun in the woods? Damien, you have to be kidding me." Dean could think of few things that were less fun than woods, which, in his memory, always meant a demon, spirit, or monster of some kind.

Caleb looked unreasonably happy about their foray, though perhaps it could just be residual good cheer over having Dean back among the land of the living. "We need to change your perception of forests, Deuce. Camping's supposed to be fun."

"Yeah," Sam said, tripping over a root and nearly sending his lanky body sprawling. "Fun."

The older hunters snorted at the youngest, who, even when they were younger, had never understood what the other two knew intuitively - how to move through dense underbrush without making a sound.

Dean turned back to Caleb, ignoring the loud swears from behind him. "We don't have time for this. We should be fighting a war."

"You need to relax." Caleb knew all about wars, a lot about demons, and even a little about these new angels. And he also knew that Dean had been running himself ragged since his miraculous return from Hell. "You used to know how to have fun."

"Back when we weren't the only ones fighting."

Caleb frowned. "We are not the only hunters out here, dude. We may have lost Johnny and Pastor Jim but there's still the Brotherhood -"

"In shambles."

"Don't be so negative." Caleb shook his head. "Last time I try to take you on a vacation."

"It's not a vacation." Sam tripped again, this time sending the bags he was carrying flying. "Damnit! A little help here, guys?"

"You're still the youngest, bro. We get to protect you with our lives…"

"And you get to carry the bags. It's a fair deal, Sammy."

"Not with the Sammy thing again." Sam muttered, picking himself up, running his hands briskly over his heavy jacket to brush the debris away. "We're supposed to be looking for Joshua."

"Sawyer got lost?" Dean smiled for the first time since they'd entered the woods. "Always knew he was a lousy hunter."

"He was after a rugaru." Sam said, "Carolyn called. Why else would I let Caleb drag us out on a camping trip in the middle of January?"

"He was hunting alone?" Dean snapped. It was the number one rule of hunters. Going solo got you killed. "Why?"

"He was chasing a rumor, Deuce, and , as you just pointed out, the Brotherhood is spread too thin to send two people on a wild goose chase." The look in Dean's eyes was not amused. He already knew his place as the future Guardian – and Joshua's as the future Advisor. Like Pastor Jim, he felt responsible for everyone lost on the battle field. So Caleb backed up, "We've checked on rugaru rumors in these hills for the past dozen years. We've never found one, figured it was just wolves scaring the civvies."

"Tell that to Josh." Dean said shortly, and picked up their pace.

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	2. Chapter 2

_"You're looking at Act One, Scene One, of a nightmare, one not restricted to witching hours or dark, rain swept streets." **The Twilight Zone**_

.***.

"Tell him to forget about commercial travel." Caleb was ominously at Dean's shoulder, eyes smoldering, if only to keep them from tearing up at the thought of the kids fighting for their lives in the next room. "The Ames jet will be waiting for him. He'll be here in four hours, tops."

Deuce relayed the information to Joshua, who seemed on the edge of a breakdown. Was it really almost twenty years ago that they'd all scoffed at the idea of Sawyer becoming a father? And here he was, his kid's life hanging by a thread.

In response to a question Dean sighed, scrubbed his face with one hand. "Joshua, man, it doesn't look good." His voice trembled. He felt too damn connected to this kid, the son of a person he hadn't respected at all until it was almost too late, the boy who'd become his own son's best friend. The two had a bond so reminiscent of Dean and Caleb's that it scared him.

"No, my boys are okay." Dean's voice got harder along with the relief in his words. He knew how this must sound to Joshua, who had only one son, who had entrusted Dean with Max's life. Dean had three sons on the farm, Josh had only one. Odds sucked sometimes.

Dean didn't know what else he could say to the older man, who he suspected was already looking for car keys, wallet, already ready to go. "He saved JT's life." He knew this would mean something to Joshua, he knew that the hunter would remember.

Because history just kept on repeating itself.

**Seventeen Hours Before**

JT lay on his back, hoping it could always be like this. The fire crackled easily behind them, and Max showed James, in a fit of good humor, how chucking in dry pinecones could make the flames green. His younger brother was currently trying that, lobbing the seed pods from further and further away.

Max was sitting with one knee drawn up to his chest, staring at the fire. JT stared at him, then rolled his eyes up to the stars. "Penny for your thoughts."

"Dude, we're in an economic meltdown. I'm not selling them for less than the rest of the chocolate."

JT smiled and pushed himself off the ground, taking one last look at Orion, the hunter and ultimate Guardian. He piled the marshmallows, graham crackers, and chocolate into his arms and sat next to Max near the fire. They both put a marshmallow on a stick over the fire before they spoke again.

"It's all this magic stuff."

"Thought Joshua didn't want you in the coven."

Max snorted, running his hands through his blond hair. "He wants me in the coven more than anything. And it's actually kind of cool."

"Cool." JT watched as his marshmallow caught fire. He deliberately turned it over, roasting the whole thing a deep black, before lifting it to his lips to blow it out. "So what's up with the angst act?"

Max shrugged, then sighed. "If I become part of the coven and part of the Triad I'll be the ultimate freak."

JT leaned close to his best friend and pointed at his younger brother, who had gathered an armful of pinecones to throw into the fire all at once. "I think we already have the ultimate freak." He allowed himself a smirk as Max threw back his head and smiled at the sky, a move that was inherently Max Sawyer.

"And everyone calls you the sweet one." Then, lifting his voice louder, Max called across the crackling fire, "Hey Jimmy!" He even paused for the inevitable next sentence.

"It's _James_."

"Hey Ghost Whisperer." Max tried again, making both Winchester boys roll their eyes. "See any spirits around?"

"They'd be all over you, ultimate witch freak." Which, of course, just meant that James had the best hearing on Earth. "But you are sitting really close to Harper Lee."

"Of course I am." Max muttered, scooting just a little closer to JT. They watched as the fire – and their marshmallows – glowed a brilliant green with the addition of a dozen new pinecones. Then Max lowered his voice again. He wasn't looking at JT – he was staring into the depths of the fire, and the dangerous, beautiful entity danced in his eyes. "You ever feel like you don't know what you want?"

"Every day." JT said easily. "Sometimes I think I'm going to play for the Sox, other times I can't see myself doing anything but hunting."

"I wish I was psychic." Max said suddenly. "I wish I knew that all this would turn out okay."

"All what?" JT asked, genuinely confused. "The big war was fought before we were born. There's spirits and demons and other baddies out there, but there's no epic battle for us to die in."

"Still…" Max didn't take his eyes off the fire, not even when his marshmallow melted off and fell into the embers with a soft _hiss_. "I've always had this awful feeling…" Max shook his head and smiled, and whatever tension had filled the air up until a moment ago was dispersed. "This is bordering on chick talk. _Feelings_." Max could not have said the word with more derision if he tried.

James loped over, picking a graham cracker out of the bag and eating it plain. "Can't believe this is our last summer blowout."

"I can't believe they let you go back to that school after you told the principal you were convinced your teacher was a Wendigo." The comments rolled easily off Max's tongue. He didn't even have to think about making fun of James anymore, and recently the younger boy had learned how to dish it out in kind.

"Can't believe you even _want _to go back. Haven't you slept with every girl in your class?"

"Jimmy!" JT admonished, though he smirked at the truth in the question. "What I can't believe is that we're allowed to be out here at all, even if Ben is up at the house."

"Man, we're seventeen. I think we can handle a little campout."

As if on cue, as if Max's easy words had bidden it, James let out a horrible, arching scream.

**Eighteen Years Before**

There had been a time when Caleb had contacted Joshua through Brotherhood channels. He'd woken the hunter up at three in the morning, blearily looking at the clock, expecting to hear that one of his friends was missing or dead, that there was a hunt they needed him to run. Instead, he heard Caleb's voice on the other end asking him if he wanted to meet up for drinks.

"Reaves, do you know what time it is?" He hissed, feeling his muscles uncoil once he knew that everything, except for, possibly, Caleb's faculties, was a-okay.

But he couldn't well avoid Caleb, not when the younger man mentioned that Mac might just be working up the courage to propose. The one thing the two actually agreed upon was their parents' relationship. "I'll be there."

And, strangely enough, they hadn't torn out each other's throats. It had actually been a pleasant evening, filled with them happily bashing Mac and Esme's strange relationship and alcohol. Lots of alcohol.

"Bet you I can pick up a girl faster than you." Caleb said, slamming another shot down on the counter. He usually didn't drink, not like this, not when he didn't have a hunt he wanted to forget. Lowering his inhibitions made his already psychic-powered mind hazy, strange. But tonight the lack of connection with those he loved was actually strangely exhilarating. He felt alone in his own head, and was loving it.

Joshua grinned easily, sizing up his competition. They were exact opposite in features, with Joshua's white-blond hair and lightly tanned skin next to Caleb's soft black locks and olive tone. But they were both, unequivocally, handsome. "Fine."

It had taken Caleb forty seconds to scout out a table of leggy women, two minutes to wheedle one away from the group, another minute to get her back over to the bar.

Joshua's pick, the classic blond, blue-eyed California beauty, was already there. When she laughed she leaned forward and touched Joshua's chest. The older hunter glanced at Caleb and grinned, knowing that he'd won this round.

It was that night that Caleb remembered, that elated look on Joshua's face when he finally one-upped his future Knight, as he crashed through the forest. Yes, he had billed this as a regular ol' camping trip for Deuce, and Sammy had let the cat out of the bag before his time. Dean had too much on his mind since he got out of Hell and got his first angel connection. This could have been fun, with a side of heart-stopping.

Except, now that the Runt had brought it up, Caleb could think of nothing but Sawyer. It had been easier, so much easier, a decade ago when he could hate the other hunter easily, without bias. It had been easier to lump him in with the worst of them – Ian and Fischer and the horror story of Harland Sawyer.

But a night of drinking and picking up girls, not to mention ten years of getting each other out of bad scrapes, had made it impossible to outright hate the man. As their future Advisor, they would have to respect Joshua, but right now, in the woods, Caleb came to the startling realization that he might actually like him.

"If he confronted the rugaru alone he'll probably be injured." Dean said. They'd stopped next to a pile of small boulders to reorient themselves, using a compass and map and last coordinates to try to find their ways around the dense forest. He looked up, mouth hardening. "Damien!"

"What?" Caleb said, snapping out of whatever trance he had been in. Before Dean even opened his mouth Caleb shook his head, cradling his face in his hands. "No death visions, but it's always hard to connect with Josh and Esme. The coven are used to keeping their minds closed."

"Wouldn't stop a death vision." Sam said from above. His job when they were younger had always been to climb trees in order to find their position and he was at the top of one now, looking down on the other two. He swung down the branches, somehow more graceful in a tree than he ever would be on the ground. "That way feels right." He pointed in the direction of some particularly dark trees with thick brambles.

"Of course it does." Dean said, shoving his compass in his pocket. "Why should I bother when I have the Wonder Twins with me?"

"You getting a reading off Sawyer?" Caleb asked, shouldering his pack and resigning himself to yet another recon mission where they spent much more time worrying than eating s'mores.

Sam shrugged. He wasn't used to his powers yet, didn't understand them the way that Caleb seemed to intuitively know his own. "There's just more pain that way."

There was a beat of silence and an owl hooted dolefully in the distance, a lonely, haunting sound. "Let's go, then," Dean said, moving through the trees fast, praying that the two psychic telephones he was toting around wouldn't see Sawyer dead before they found him in real life.

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	3. Chapter 3

_The sad truth is that the truth is sad. **Lemony Snicket**_

.***.

Dean was restless after getting off the phone with Joshua. He wandered into the ICU waiting area and ran into his sons, all of whom should be at least sitting down, if not checked into their own hospital beds. But he could not deny them their friend, not after what Max did to save their lives.

His oldest opened his mouth, and Dean knew he was going to apologize again. Yes, Ben had been in charge of the teens, but the concussion and subsequent unconsciousness had given him more than excuse enough for his lapse in attention. "I know, Ace." He said, though no words had passed between them, and squeezed Ben's shoulder. "I know."

He knew that Ben would rather it be him in the hospital bed, rather it be him sporting the broken wrist, like JT, or bruised face, back, legs, like James. Dean knew what it was like to play martyr, and hoped that Ben's self-loathing would subside once enough people reassured him that it wasn't his fault.

He also made a mental note to keep Ben away from Joshua, who may not be so understanding, especially after he saw his only son who, the doctors said gravely, would not survive the night.

James was looking straight ahead and Dean was grateful for Sam, who was sitting next to him, keeping up a steady stream of comfort. James had detested hospitals ever since his abilities had kicked in full-swing, hating the dead people who accosted and threatened him. Any other time Dean would have gone to him, tried to help him, but he was looking for someone else.

The relationship between JT and Max was so like Dean's own relationship with Caleb that it took his breath away. He watched the two interact, watched as they readjusted themselves to each other, sharpening each other's edges, smoothing them down, comforting, fighting, loving. He remembered his own experience, when he'd thought Caleb was dead all those years ago, and those dozen or more times in between when his best friend had hovered on the brink of death. He remembered the hard ache in his stomach as he desperately wished his friend out of the predicament, bartering his own life in return.

"JT…" And that was all it took for his son the next Guardian who was so, so like his father, with the same loves and fears, to turn and bury his sixteen-year-old face against Dean, holding onto him like an anchor.

"He's dying, dad." JT blubbered, distraught, heartbroken. Dean wished the pain away for his son, for the boy in the other room who he'd come to regard as a son, for the man on a plane across the country, searching for his son.

The next words were muffled by the fabric of Dean's shirt but he heard them anyway and held his son all the tighter for them. "It should be me."

**Sixteen Hours Before**

JT was instantly at his brother's side, clutching his shoulder as James yowled, his hands clutching his head. Max took a different route, swiping one of the burning sticks from the fire and holding it out in front of him, searching for something that would cause a boy to scream like that.

"What is it, Jimmy?" JT asked, his voice an octave higher than usual, his hands scrambling over his brother's shoulders, trying to hold on to the flailing, screaming boy. He recognized the position, though, the head between the hands. It was something Uncle Sam and Uncle Caleb did when they were having a particularly violent vision.

But Jimmy wasn't like them, not when it came to the vision thing. He saw dead people, like that kid in the movie Uncle Caleb had rented for them the weekend after he learned about Jimmy's new powers. He'd undoubtedly thought _The Sixth Sense_ would bring a level of humor to the powers that had been scaring the youngest Winchester.

"Is it a ghost?" asked Max, running over, throwing the log in the fire on his way. "Because I can't find anything out here, not even footprints."

"Ghost, Jimmy?" JT asked quietly, trying to quell his own panic at the sight of his brother writhing in the throes of a power he couldn't control.

Finally, it seemed as if whatever attack he was having was abating, leaving James panting with tears running down his cheeks. "Yeah." He looked up at the house, three football fields away, and suddenly thought that they could not be close enough. "Ben…"

"Knew you'd be a sissy about the camp out." Max said but his voice held no conviction and he, too, looked at the house.

"What about Ben?" JT asked, giving his brother a slight shake that made the younger wince and the elder wish he could have some of that patience his family always swore he possessed.

James closed his eyes again, willing the pounding in his head to leave him. He didn't have visions, he saw dead people. Why was he breaking out of the norm now? "He's hurt."

"'Course he is." Max said, already moving towards the house. "Is it really too much to ask to have a weekend of peace?" But even he couldn't keep the fear out of his voice, and his feet moved swiftly across the rocks that ringed the edge of the lake.

But there was something else, some integral part of the vision that JT was forgetting about, the thing that had caused him pain beyond the emotional kind of watching his oldest brother thrown repeatedly against the wall. "I don't have visions."

"I know, bro." JT said, already on his feet and holding out a hand to James to haul him into a similar position.

"No." JT said, looking up at Orion and trying to explain this strange phenomenon to himself. He said it again, slower. "I don't have visions. I see ghosts." A poltergeist would explain this, and while the three had been hunting before they'd never taken on so much as a poltergeist alone.

A second later it wasn't a ghost he saw. Couldn't be, because JT had sucked in his breath, too, and unless JT had some latent powers that had yet to manifest themselves, the older brother wasn't a ghost whisperer. The man was a stranger, tall, strong, moving with catlike agility towards them. And there was something _wrong_ about the way he was moving, acting. Both Winchesters felt it, like a disturbance in the Force.

Max backtracked so he was next to them, a low growl building in the back of his throat when he realized that they had no guns and only their small pocket knives to defend themselves. "Demon?" He asked. It would have been a strange question in any other family, and JT found it vaguely sad that they jumped automatically to the supernatural when they needed an explanation for strangers on their property.

But it was a demon, and it was getting close. "Should we run?" JT asked, though one look at his brother showed that the youngest was still dazed from the strange vision. Seeing ghosts often left him feeling punch-drunk.

There was a strange ripping sound. Max had broken the tent's fabric door when he came running out, salt in hand. Ben had left it behind, laughing at the idea of a demon on Jim's old property. There were so many wards against the creatures, and it was such hallowed ground, that the idea of anything other-worldly showing up had seemed ludicrous. The salt had been a joke.

Now Max spread it in a circle around the three boys, careful not to miss a single spot. By the time the demon had gotten close enough for the firelight to flicker off his face, they were protected by the only element that worked all the time. "Don't move." Max hissed unnecessarily. "Let me do the talking."

He carried his father's spell book in one sweaty hand. Joshua had given it to him before the camping trip, telling him that it would be some good reading, probably hoping that Max would accept his place in the coven more readily if he was let in on some of the more interesting aspects of the Craft. The seventeen-year-old had brought the book along, but had been planning on leaving it in his duffel the whole trip. He wanted nothing to do with the witchy part of his family.

Facing off the demon, though, Max was glad for the reassuring weight in his hand. If nothing else, he could probably find a spell that would contact the Triad. He was a stubbornly independent teenager, but even he wasn't about to go against a demon strong enough to break all the wards on the farm and get passed Ben who, unlike them, was actually an experienced hunter. He knew when to call in the big guns.

The demon didn't halt until he got to the edge of the salt line, at which point he looked up at the three, the future Triad. Max was slightly in front, his arm behind him touching JT, the other hand holding his father's book like a talisman. JT had his arms around his brother, who looked dazed, though whether that was from the pain in his head or the sight of a demon was debatable.

Then, the scariest thing that had ever happened in Max's memory. The demon looked straight at them and grinned an awful, terrible grin.

"A hundred wards of experienced hunters didn't keep me from getting to you three." He leered, stepping over the carefully drawn line. "Why should a little salt?"

**Eighteen Years Before**

They smelled the blood first, a cold, sharp, metallic scent that hung in the air, clung to branches and dirt and trees. It was overwhelming.

"Damn." Dean said, a swear, an exclamation of empathy. Caleb lifted his foot to find that he'd been standing in a puddle an inch thick.

"He can't have gotten far. Not if he's this hurt."

He'd wanted to make this a fun weekend. Grab Joshua from wherever he was hiding out and rib him for being attacked by a werewolf of all things. Hang under the stars where grudges meant less than nothing. Try to forget about demons and (geeze, it kept hitting him at the weirdest time) angels.

He hadn't been expecting blood. "Fucking Sawyer." But his voice hitched at the end, and Caleb searched just as carefully as the brothers, coming the rocky, tree-spotted hills, reaching out tentatively with his mind and bringing it back when he found a wall of pain up ahead. "He's still alive."

"Right here!" Sam's form suddenly doubled over, nearly disappeared as he dropped to the ground next to Joshua, who was strangely white in the dead leaves, the awful, scarlet blood. Still, he managed the signature eye roll at the sight of all three Triad members.

Dean skidded to a stop a split second after Caleb knelt on Joshua's other side, looking at the claw marks that littered Joshua's prone body. It was the older Winchester that Joshua's eyes fixed upon. When he opened his mouth, blood poured over white teeth and his voice was almost obscured by the frightening gurgle of liquid somewhere deep inside. "H-hey." He closed his eyes after the stutter and continued, smoother. "Heard you'd come back."

Caleb had his hands deep in Joshua's side, holding together bits of skin. The feel of blood, too warm in the early winter air, made bile unexpectedly rush to his mouth. Still, he kept his cool. For all their sakes. "You know Deana. Can't even find a home in Hell."

For his part, Dean also managed a smile, a quirk that started at the side of his mouth. This felt strangely like fate repeating itself, because hadn't Joshua been in a similar position just before his stint in the underworld? Back then it had been a stab to the back but the blood, the screwed up look of pain, were terribly reminiscent.

But Dean found his voice, too, adding to this strange ambiance they were creating, where wise cracks and dying existed side by side. "Reava's just upset because you ruined our first camp out since my return."

Joshua's smile was more a grimace of pain, made worse by the blood that ringed his lips like a horrible parody of women's make up. "Only Winchesters would camp out -" a groan, or perhaps a moan, of pain, before he continued, looking whiter than ever, "voluntarily."

"Don't talk, man." Caleb said, putting a hand on Joshua's chest. He could feel the heart thrumming in his chest, going too fast, beating too hard to try to repair the body that seemed beyond help. He looked at the older man, hating to ask, needing to know. "Just scratches?"

Sam's powers had been on the fritz on and off since the end of the Yellow Eyed Demon, but Caleb should have been able to sense the rugaro's strange, furtive consciousness so near to them. Dean may have just been dragged out of Hell, but he was usually quick as a lioness and ten times more deadly. It was their combined worry over Joshua that made them weak, vulnerable.

And as if Caleb's words had summoned the beast, the werewolf-like entity leaped in the air, this time searching for a new pray. What was the point, after all, in hunting something too weak to fight back? What was the fun in that?

Dean didn't notice, nor Sam, nor Caleb. The creature leaped, made contact, and delivered the fatal bite, the kiss of death.

Joshua screamed with the agony of it, not even bothering to muffle his sound around the other three men who were left staring, struck dumb by the sudden burst of strength shown by the Advisor. Surprisingly, it was Sam who moved first, taking one of the guns from their gear and turning on the wolf. Three rounds found their marks in the creature's eye, heart, head. Three silver bullets ending a monster's life.

Leaving the Triad to turn and gape at the oldest hunter present, lying, unconscious, on the ground.

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	4. Chapter 4

_"Always the innocent are the first victims. So it has been for ages past, so it is now." **Harry Potter**_

.***.

"He's really bad off." Caleb came up behind Dean's shoulder, peering along with him into the glass-windowed room that held a seventeen-year-old struggling for life. "The doctors are pretty sure he won't survive the night."

"Your bedside manner is crap, Damien." Dean turned away from the window. James and JT seemed to have passed out from stress and exhaustion, draped over uncomfortably square chairs. Ben was pacing, trying to get doctors to talk to him, trying not to think of his young friend in the next room. "I'd try to refrain from mentioning that to Joshua."

"Joshua…" Caleb breathed, looking pained at the thought of his step-brother going through this ordeal. "Can you imagine?"

Dean couldn't, not with his own three sons so alive and vital in the room. To live on after one of them died would be beyond heartbreaking. The only thing Dean could think as akin to the pain would be that awful night and day of losing Sam to a blade of a human being, and even that wasn't quite the same. Sam was his brother, and he'd proven more than once that he would die for him, but these boys were his children, his legacy.

A large hand touched his shoulder. Sam's voice was low, hollow. "Carolyn, Juliet, and the girls are coming with Mac on his plane. They'll be here after Joshua…Carolyn's in shock, I think."

"This is all such a mess." Caleb said, head in hands as he tried to connect to mind in the other room, the one that kept slipping through his grasp. Max was his protégé, the same way he had once been Johnny's, and damn if the kid's consciousness wasn't imprinted on his psyche as well as Dean and Sam's had ever been. "What does the universe have against hunting trips?"

"You've been thinking about that one, too?" Dean asked, voice soft.

Caleb nodded, looked meaningfully at Dean. They'd never needed words to convey the thoughts that flowed so easily between them, and they didn't need them now. They'd royally screwed up one hunting trip, and a Sawyer had to make a sacrifice. Now it seemed like the next generation was doomed to repeat their mistakes.

**Sixteen Hours Before**

The demon turned to James first. James, who was still breathing heavily, one hand permanently attached to his head as he tried to will the pain from his mind. "You're the new Knight?"

Max moved in front of the Winchesters as JT let out a low growl in the back of his throat. "No. I am."

Huge head cocked slightly to the side, the demon looked Max up and down. "You do not have the blood of a Winchester."

"I'm a Sawyer." Max held his chin up higher, proud of his heritage. His grandfather had been a Knight, no matter how awful at that post he'd been. His father was the Advisor. The Brotherhood ran through his veins, passed down to him more by blood than by choice. "Who are you?"

Demon's smiles are awful things to behold. They twisted a human mouth into positions unknown, making the expression sinister, dark. "No one of relevance. You could call me an…ambassador. The messenger."

"I think this is one of those times where you should shoot the messenger, Max." To his credit, JT's voice was firm, unwavering, one arm still draped protectively around his little brother, who was doing his damndest to get a handle on the abilities that were currently making his reality a nightmare.

And though Max felt his heart beating double time, he, too, made his voice smooth, even, infusing it with the power his father and Uncle Caleb always seemed to command. "What's the message?"

"Let's not start a fight…" The huge man sighed, seemed genuinely displeased by the turn of the events, and Max paused for a fraction of a second, hoping beyond hope that, perhaps, this confrontation would not end in violence. He didn't care for himself – he'd been after Caleb for years to let him take a solo hunt – but JT would be a pacifist if you left him alone with his camera and film, and James was just a baby even if he was newly thirteen.

Of course, this was a demon, and if his father's stories had taught him anything it was that demons were tricky, slippery, slimy creatures that stabbed you in the back (occasionally literally) and never told the truth.

So when James started screaming, his voice rising to such octaves that it was no longer really audible, Max was spitting angry but not surprised.

"James!" But the youngest threw off his older brother, screaming as he looked around him. JT whirled, eyes wide with concern, anger. "Stop! Stop whatever you're doing!"

Max opened the book again. He wished he'd flipped through it on the ride to the farm instead of the Playboys Uncles Caleb and Dean had given him for his birthday. The sight of his father's familiar handwriting soothed him and, unlike the other hunter's notebooks, there were no Latin inscriptions or demon hunting techniques. It was page after page of spells in languages that were older than Latin, page after page of brews that included parts of animals and lesser-known herbs.

He couldn't hope for something to take away James' pain – the screaming boy was obviously seeing the things his ability and the demon wanted him to see – but he could put an end to this madness, if only he could get the Triad out here. His mentor, the Winchestors…they always seemed to know what to do.

JT stood squarely between the demon and his younger brother, shaking with fury rather than fear. This was to his advantage, as was the heart that beat firmly in his chest, the heart that made him the Guardian even if he was too young to officially take on that role. "Let him go. You can settle whatever you wanted with me and Max. He's just a kid."

The demon considered this for a moment – actually considered, for he knew, as James would know in a few minutes, that the poltergeist waiting inside the farmhouse was a nasty one, that it would take out James just as surely as it had taken out Ben, and perhaps the young boys' ability to see the ghost would make the event that much more entertaining.

James' screams had died down to whimpers, eyes focused squarely on the ground and not at the bloody, terrifying, threatening ghosts that danced around the circle, around the demon and the three boys. "Fine. He may go." The demon turned to him, the smile still other-worldly. "You may even call your daddy if you like, young one. Tell him an old friend bade me to pay his children a visit."

James shook his head, eyes darting up to meet JT's. "No…I can stay…I can fight…" but even as he said the words he blanched, trying to find a place in sight that was free of ghosts.

"Call the Triad, James," Max said, inching his way closer to the younger boy. "And Ben's probably hurt. You need to help him."

It was the mention of his brother that closed the deal. James bit his lip, then nodded bravely. He put one hand on JT's shoulder, another on Max's. This was _his_ Triad. His future. It would not be taken away from him.

Without saying another word (for he was sure that, if more words were said, he would lose his already tenuous resolve), he took off at a sprint, running towards a house where only more misery and heartbreak was waiting for him.

A demon's smile, JT and Max found, could chill to the bone. "Now the real fun can begin."

**Eighteen Years Before**

Caleb had sent Sam and Dean away for herbs, a leftover from his baby-sitting years, this instinct to get them out of the way when the grown-ups were talking. But they went willingly enough, as if they needed to get moving, to do something. Caleb knew the feeling well.

But that meant they weren't around when Joshua blinked, opening his eyes and gazing unseeingly in Caleb's direction. Caleb waited quietly. He'd wait a year, if it would make this better for Joshua.

"He bit me?" Joshua's voice was surprisingly strong, which made Caleb wince all the more.

"Yeah," If Sam's shots hadn't taken the thing out of commission, Deuce's rib-splintering kick probably would have. "Joshua…I'm so damn sorry."

Joshua grimaced, "Where's the dynamic duo?" He was past stuttering now, past even pain. He felt the life leave his limbs with the steady drip of his blood staining the ground, the blood that now cursed with poison that could make him a killer.

"Sent him out for herbs. The old theory of thyme…" Caleb joked, remembering an older hunter's – it may have been Pastor Jim, or perhaps Johnny – words about the only cure for a rogaru's mark. Thyme and fluids. Seconds and blood.

Joshua let his eyes close. They suddenly were heavy, too heavy to bother keeping open. He didn't want this to be his last image, the blood, his own grey skin, Caleb's pained face. "Go ahead."

It was the rule, of course. They hunted demons and poltergeists, shape-shifters and monsters. And werewolves, and rogarus. You couldn't go over to the dark side without paying the price.

But Caleb's harsh, choked voice cut off Joshua's last revere. "I'm not going to kill you, Sawyer. God, do you think I could put a fucking bullet in your head?"

Joshua forced his eyes open. "You have to, Reaves. SOP, remember?"

"Not today, Josh." Caleb said, a soft smile flickering. "Sam had a brain blast. My only job is to keep you from bleeding out until then." He raised one eyebrow, a facial quirk he knew Joshua hated on everyone but himself. "Plus, what would our parents say?"

"Wake me up when it's over." Joshua murmured, ready to nod off again. Then Caleb stuck his hand into Josh's side.

He managed to cut off his scream by biting his tongue (just what he needed: more blood), but still threw a death glare in Caleb's direction. "You did that on purpose."

"Been wanting to do it for years." Caleb said, that flicker of a smile appearing again. "Cowboy up, man."

"Easy for you to say." Joshua muttered, happy for the distraction. He was only vaguely aware of the stitches that began to enter his side, a beaver dam trying to plug a waterfall. He put his face in the dirt, and his blond hair became red and sticky, matted with his own blood. The fatigue that came with blood loss was already sweeping over him…

Caleb was speaking, but his voice no longer registered to Joshua, as if he were speaking German or Hebrew. "What?" He asked. His tongue felt heavy and dead in his mouth.

"I was asking you why you took on this hunt alone. Thought you were pretty firmly in the corporate world." Caleb wet took a cloth and pressed it against the wound, too large to really be stemmed by such an inadequate bandage. When he took it away a moment later, it was reddened as if by magic.

Joshua would have shrugged if he could feel anything below his neck. "I needed a break."

"Woman problems?" Caleb asked, momentarily forgetting that he was the last one who should be talking, that Joshua Sawyer was a married man now. For a second it could have been five years ago, ten years ago, on another hunt in another place but with the same old jokes, the same old problems.

But he had inadvertently not only hit the nail on the head, but whacked it into submission. Joshua grimaced – he could feel the poison creeping up his arm, towards his heart, and was suddenly thankful that he was bleeding out. His heart rate had slowed so much that his transformation into something Caleb would have to kill was being drawn out. He'd take a couple more minutes on this earth, even if he couldn't feel his own body for most of it.

It was important, though, for him to get this information out. He'd promised himself, before being bitten, back when he was only bleeding out and not condemned to death, that he would tell Caleb, just in case the worst happened. They'd never gotten along, but Caleb felt brotherhood and loyalty the same way Joshua did, and they both owed each other.

So he forced himself to say the words for the first time, making them irretrievably, irrefutably true. "Carolyn's pregnant."

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	5. Chapter 5

_"It is our choices who show who we are, far more than our abilities." **Dumbledore**_

.***.

Caleb opened the car door and Joshua rushed in, frazzled, soaked, disorganized. It was one of the few times in their lives that Caleb could remember seeing the Advisor in such a state.

"Joshua…" Dean started from the back seat of the Ferrari as it pulled out of the airport parking lot, but he swallowed his words when Joshua put up a hand.

Grief and loss supposedly make people look older, but on Joshua the opposite was true. With his still-thick blond hair plastered to his face, his eyes bright with exertion and a little concern-induced madness, Joshua looked just exactly the same as he had eighteen years ago, before the birth of his son. "JT and James and Ben…they're alright, Dean?"

"Yeah," Dean said, "Yeah, they're fine."

"Then how did my son get so hurt?" Joshua wasn't a shouter, as the Triad was apt to be in times of stress. Caleb said, once, that the sign of a good Advisor was someone who could whisper louder than anyone could yell. Josh had a whisper like that, a soft, cold breath of air that belayed hidden power.

Caleb steered the car down the freeway at twenty miles over the legal limit. It was hard to talk to Joshua, concern himself with driving, and be totally in on Max's mind at the same time. "He performed some pretty heavy-duty crafting, Josh. And he saved JT's life."

"Damnit!" Joshua said, and his years started coming back as wrinkles of fear lined his face. "I didn't want this for them!"

"No one could have predicted it. I had no idea demons could even _get_ on the farm," Dean said, because he needed to be placated as well.

It was Caleb, though, who really helped. "Max will be fine."He said, the only thing that would really soothe his step-brother. He was concentrating hard on whatever was going on in the kid's head, and Dean barely resisted the urge to take the steering wheel out of his hands. "He's going to be hurting for a long time, but his mind's coming back." Almost immediately after saying that, he closed his mind off, because Max's pain was now rolling off him in waves that were hard to handle.

Minute tremors coursed through Joshua's body and he clenched his fists tight. There was no talking his way out of this one, no smooth deal or loophole he could find that would help his son cheat death. After avoiding it for so long himself, he'd thought himself impermeable, but the quiet snap of his heart told him that he would surely die if his son did.

**Fourteen hours before**

James stumbled across the grass. His fledgling abilities had been hurting more than helping these past few months, but right this second he was wishing he'd spent a heck of a lot more time with Uncle Caleb and Mac. _Help!_ He tried, projecting the thought as far as he could. _Caleb! Dad!_

Except his didn't work like that, not really. He could see ghosts, which helped on hunts, but he wasn't like Uncle Sam or Uncle Caleb or grandfather Mac, who could all communicate with their minds or had visions. He was useless.

And he felt incredibly more useless when he ran up the steps to the house two at a time, throwing open the door to reveal a poltergeist angrier than any he'd ever seen.

It was a scary picture, that ugly phantom hovering in the air, but what was worse was Ben lying unmoving, on the tile floor.

Using all his strength, using the adrenaline that was coursing through his system and the anger he felt at the sight of his brother so helpless, James sent out one last thought with whatever psychic ability he had. _Help us!_

Then he went for the guns.

.***.

JT moved instinctively closer to Max. Not because he thought Max couldn't take care of himself – lately, Uncle Caleb had been bringing his best friend on more and more hunts, trying to wrap him in before the oldest of the next generation went off to college. No, he was worried that Max would follow his usual MO and do something incredibly stupid.

Like talk to the demon, when they should be working on trying to run away.

"You aren't the first demon we've met, you know." Max said, his voice supremely confident in a way JT would never, ever be able to pull off. Max got all his talking genes from his father.

The demon tutted. "I know all about Malachi Harris. He went out of order, you know. We weren't supposed to surprise you until the old Triad left their posts. You would have been supremely unprepared."

Max raised an eyebrow. "I thought this was a friendly discussion."

The demon smiled suggestively. "Think of me as the Luca Brasi of Hell. With every message comes….a little bit extra."

"Thanks for the warning." Max muttered while JT shushed him. Ignoring his friend, Max raised his voice, "So can we just get this over with? Message, beating, whatever? 'Cause we had this pretty awesome weekend planned out…"

His voice trailed off as the demon's smile grew wider, wider, until it seemed to take up its whole face. "How about we have the message first?"

Max tightened his grip on the book and tried to remember the spell his little sister had been saying a lot lately. It seemed like Josie wanted to follow their grandmother's path, not their father's. He bit his lip and almost, almost raised his hand, almost…

"Damnit, Max!" JT said, grabbing his hand and looking at him hard. It was a look only best friends shared and understood, and in that one look Max knew that JT was frustrated with both of their lack of knowledge, lack of weapons, lack of help, but most of all his best friend was scared shitless.

"You want to just stand here and do nothing?" Max asked impatiently, grabbing his hand away from JT. They had no guns, no knives bigger than the inch and a half long pocket version on JT's chain, no way of getting out of this situation except for Max's limited (so limited, and now he was definitely regretting those times when he daydreamed instead of paying attention to his grandmother) knowledge of crafting. They had to do this. _He_ had to do this.

"The message is quite quick." The demon said, smiling that awful smile that wasn't a smile at all but the grin the cat has once it eats the canary. "Just tell the Triad that the war they thought was over still has some players on the other side."

"Okay." JT said, cursing himself for not being able to keep the tremor out of his voice. "We got your message. Just go." _And don't stop by the house on the way back_. He thought wildly, glancing again at the big farm house over the demon's shoulder. His brothers were in there….his brothers…

The demon looked at them thoughtfully. "I have been dead many years, but I'm fairly certain that the logistics of life are still the same." The demon moved faster than either boy thought possible and there was a _crack_ as JT's wrist broke.

"You only need one person to deliver a message." The demon said gaily, looking for the first time like he was beginning to enjoy himself. "But I'm feeling kind today. Decide between yourselves who will live."

**Eighteen Years Before**

"Pregnant?" Caleb repeated as if he'd never heard the word before. He gaped for a second before asking the stupidest question imaginable. "Are you sure?"

Joshua, even bleeding out, even maybe turning into a rugaru, managed to give Caleb a look that made him feel fourteen again and looked down upon by the older hunters. "I think I can tell, Reaves."

"Right." Caleb said, coloring a little, wondering how even in this situation, with the blond slowly dying, he still felt like Joshua had the upper hand. Then surprise was replaced with anger, and he knew that emotion well. "So you decided to go out hunting by yourself and leave your pregnant wife behind? Shit, Sawyer, aren't there enough single parents in the Brotherhood?"

"Fuck off, Reaves." Joshua said, pain lacing his words. Caleb pressed down harder on the wound, moving his other hand to the gash on Josh's hip. There were so many cuts, so many wounds, that Caleb would have to be an octopus to cover them all. "You don't need to tell me about Brotherhood statistics."

"Apparently you need a reminder." Caleb said coolly, pressing a little harder than necessary. "You should have called me, Joshua."

"You were busy with Dean." Joshua said, hand making a little jerking movement by his side. "I couldn't have…" he closed his eyes, breathed through the pain. He could barely feel his body below his neck, which. The shock was the only reason he could still talk. "I couldn't pull you away from that."

"You could have called." Caleb said, "We're brothers now."

"By law." Joshua said, biting his lip to keep from screaming. "Not by blood. You already have two blood brothers, Reaves. They've been following you around since you were a teenager."

Caleb shook his head. "So you're just running away from Carolyn? You think getting yourself killed is an easy way to get out of fatherhood? You're such a coward, Sawyer!"

"I'm not trying to save myself!" Joshua spat, venom he didn't know he still possessed laced in the words. "Damnit! Do you know what a bad father I'd be?"

All the bluster was taken out of Caleb then. He was smart enough to follow Joshua's train of thought from his own traitorous father and upbringing Joshua must have had under him. Or even John, who was a damn good solider but a crappy father.

"The Brotherhood will take care of Carolyn." Joshua said, and Caleb saw that whatever vestiges of strength the man had been clinging to before now were slipped from him fast. The Advisor's eyes were glassy, his cheeks red with the chill wind and his raging fever. "And the coven. But my son…did I say it's a boy, Caleb?...my son will not be forced to be a hunter."

It was on the tip of Caleb's tongue, the old line that none of them were forced into this life. But he knew it wasn't true. Soldiers were born and bred.

And Caleb suspected what Joshua might have suspected if he hadn't passed out in Reaves's arms: that even if Joshua did (God forbid) die on this ill-fated trip, the son that resided his wife could still grow up to be a warrior. There were some ties that bind a person to their cause, and blood was the most damning factor of all.

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	6. Chapter 6

_"Time is making fools of us again." **Dumbledore**_

.***.

Joshua sat, both hands cupping one of Max's, trying desperately to hold on to something that he knew in his heart he was going to lose.

"I asked him not to." The quiet voice from the other end of the room didn't startle Joshua. Since he'd gotten to the hospital, the only person he hadn't kicked out of the room with a well-place comment was JT. He let the boy stay, because he knew, as every father knows, exactly who is their son's best friend.

"I know you did." Joshua allowed. He wouldn't have expected anything less. Of all of the Guardian's kids, he got along with the middle son the best. It was hard _not_ to get along with JT, who could make anyone feel at ease by a few words. A PR's talent, one that Sawyer had recognized in the boy from an early age.

"As soon as the ghost – demon – whatever said that one of us was going to die he…I've never seen him act so fast, sir. He just turned around and hit me. And Max has one hell of a left hook."

"So I've been told."

JT inched closer to the bed, until he and Joshua were flanking Max's still and battered body. JT touched Max's other hand, fingers drawing shapes on his friend's smooth skin. "By the time I got to my feet Max had already made the deal. He said that he never trusted a demon's word, but it looked like he had no choice in that situation, but if he died and found out that the demon was going to kill me, too, he'd beat the crap out of the guy from the ethereal plane."

"Sounds like my son." Joshua said, a small, proud smile unknowingly gracing his lips. "So Max…"

"Played a fucking martyr." JT said. Of all the boys he swore the least, and this exclamation was what made Joshua rip his eyes away from his son and look at the boy, standing grief-stricken over Max. And he realized exactly what all the philosophers had meant when they said something about ripple effects. Max was no longer just his son anymore. He was someone's best friend, a part of a future Triad, and those kinds of ties bind just as much as blood.

"If he gets through this." Joshua said slowly, making sure to lock eyes with the middle Winchester boy. "I'll help you knock some sense into him."

He'd meant it to be a joke, but Joshua should have learned, years ago, when he was the oldest and Reaves and the Winchesters were constantly harassing him, that his abilities stopped at joke telling. JT paled and met Joshua's gaze, wide-eyed. "He'll get through it, right, sir?"

"Of course he will." Joshua said with confidence he didn't feel. He gripped his son's hand harder, as if sheer force of will could keep him on this earth. "Your uncle will kill him – he invested too much time training Max to be a Knight for him to bail out now."

"He's my best friend." JT said brokenly, staring at Joshua with red-rimmed eyes. It was the first time he'd said the words aloud, or even thought them. Max was his best friend. Period. They didn't need to define it, or remind each other. Max had his back, and JT had Max's.

As the words left his mouth, JT wondered why he hadn't said them before. He'd heard Josie and Mary say it to each other, grab each other's hands and whisper and giggle and put their heads together. Every time the girls saw one another they hugged tight, as if it had been a year and not a couple of hours or days since they'd last seen each other. Why couldn't he do a similar thing with Max? Tell him, sometime before he was on death's door, how much the other man _meant_ to JT's life?

He snorted at the thought and imagined what his father or Uncle Caleb would say about such things. He'd heard more than once that his relationship with Max resembled his father's own friendship with Caleb, and not just because dad was the Guardian and Caleb was the Knight. There were deeper reasons, more binding reasons, than that.

But Uncle Sam might understand what he meant if he ever told him about this strange evening sometime in the future (and, please, let it be one of those times when the Brotherhood gets together and laughs about near-misses, when things _almost_ went wrong but everyone turned to rights in the end!) Sam would cock his head to the side and that look would get into his eyes, that look that said that he understood something about the depths of emotion that went into real brotherhood, something about sentiments not expressed until it was almost too late.

Max would have called him a pussy for the tear that fell from his eye, but he just couldn't stand the sight anymore, the vision of Max looking so pale, so broken, so close to death, swallowed up by the vast whiteness of the hospital bed.

And JT was grateful for the hand that clenched tight around his good wrist, for Joshua's sympathetic eyes swimming with their own batch of tears, for the knowledge that he didn't have to go through this alone.

**Hours Before**

JT made to grab for Max's arm, because he _knew_, knew before his friend even stepped out in front of him, that the older boy was about to do something incredibly stupid. "Max…" he begged quietly, the word hitching as he choked back a sob. This was most definitely not the situation he wanted to find himself in at the end of summer. He'd just wanted a camp-out, an opportunity to be away from the adults and responsibilities of their world, and now he had plunged head-first into it.

"I'm doing this." Max snapped, wrenching his arm from his friend's grip. The book that was still in his hand, his father's book, and he shoved it into his friend's hand. "Don't lose this. It could save your life one day."

"I won't let you do this!" JT said, surging forward. "You think I can just sit by and watch you die?"

"Yeah, Jay, that's what I think." Max snapped. It had been a hell of a day – it should have been a fun day. By now they should have been sitting around the campfire, telling stories and cracking jokes, and even Jimmy would get in on it, losing his thirteen-year-old attitude long enough to get along with Max for JT's sake.

Now…Max didn't want to think about what could have been waiting in the farmhouse for Jimmy, what may have already attacked Ben. The other two Winchester boys could already be dead. Max was too much a part of the Brotherhood to let the Guardian potentially lose all three sons in one terrible night.

And he was too much JT's best friend to let his friend march willingly to death. Not when he had a chance to stop it.

He didn't have time to be afraid for himself. Every cell in his body was busy being afraid for JT, for little Jimmy, for the entirety of the Brotherhood. He almost forgot that what he was doing would kill him.

Well, JT always said he was reckless. And Jimmy always told him he was an idiot. He was proving them both right, now.

"Max!" JT pleaded, and Max only had time to think an apology to his friend before he wound up and punched JT the way Caleb had taught him. As promised, JT crumbled to the ground, an amazing bruise already forming across his face.

Max locked eyes with the demon and raised one thin eyebrow. "Don't worry. He'll be a good messenger anyway. I just didn't want him trying to stop this."

He stepped forward, hands up. He had no gun. He had no spells. The Triad, if they were on their way, were still hours behind. He'd just knocked out his JT so that he wouldn't stop this. It had to be done.

And that's how Maxim Sawyer, who was supposed to be a Knight, supposed to grow up to be a best friend, a husband, a father, let himself die. For love.

**18 Years Before**

Joshua's hand flailed in the air and Caleb grabbed it, held it fast. He said something to the older man, some small, comforting words that were supposed to take the pain away, but he was sure that Joshua, who was now writhing on the ground the throes of agony that accompany your entire body changing on a cellular level, couldn't hear him.

"Sam!" He snapped, glaring at the younger Winchester, who was perched on a small rock, looking like he was in the middle of chemistry class with ingredients splayed out in the front of him. "Do something!"

Dean pressed hard against the biggest of Joshua's many wounds, wishing for more than a tiny First-Aid kit and throwing his head between Caleb and Sam. He knew that the (spell/potion/antidote) that Sam was trying could work. There was documented cases of it. Documented case. But Joshua had spent nearly an hour with the rogaru's venom running through his veins. The success case had only been under the influence of the poison for fifteen minutes.

"Reaves." Joshua ground out, pain laced in every syllable. Caleb squeezed his hand and leaned closer to hear over the cold, howling wind. Joshua's lips moved for another second and then he cried out, his pain echoing off the trees and crags.

"Don't talk like that." Caleb said, leaning away as if pain was contagious. "I'm not going to kill you. Do you think I can do that? Do you think I can let you die?"

Eighteen years later, Dean's second oldest son would say something very similar to the very boy Joshua had gone into the woods to avoid. Eighteen years later, when the rogaru's bite was just another white scar on Sawyer's body, all four men who had been there that day would listen to JT's account and suddenly flash back to that moment in time, up on the lonely mountain when they were still in the throes of war. And eighteen years would be like a moment in time.

Sam got the right mixture of the thing he hoped was an antidote the same second Joshua let out a high, arching scream that made hairs stand up on the back of the Triad's neck. The same moment he went limp and still in Dean and Caleb's arms, because his heart just couldn't take it anymore.

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	7. Chapter 7

_Do not go gentle into that good night,  
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;  
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.** Dylan Thomas**_

.***.

**Present Day**

There was a struggle within in two men, eighteen years apart, father and son, about whether to live after they had been prepared to sacrifice everything for a Winchester. Gladly. Fully. It was their duty to the Brotherhood to protect the Triad, and both Sawyers had loyalty that ran long and deep.

During that struggle, the decision to succumb to the whispers and shadows of the someplace beyond or to continue on with whatever life they had been living, to go to a land without pain or risk being consumed by it, both Sawyers were locked in a limbo of agony, or memory….

.***.

Once, Max ran away from home. His father still doesn't know about it. Neither does his mother, or Josie, or the Guardian, or his Uncle Caleb (Caleb, who he usually told everything to. Everything. Even he has to admit that he worships the ground the man walks on.) No, the only person who knew was JT, and there are some secrets that are both too unimportant to share and too massive for anyone else in the world to know.

It had happened right after one of the many blowouts about college vs. the Brotherhood. His mother sided with Max – he should do whatever he wanted for one year. One year of hunting, or exploring, of travel and girls and late nights and _hunting_. After that year, he could decide for himself whether he needed college.

But Joshua was having none of that. A degree was a way to a good life. A comfortable life. A better life.

"What's better than saving people? What's better than what we do now?"

Max stormed out before he got an answer. He felt too big for his own skin, which was suddenly hot and prickly. Itchy, like he imagined a snake's was right before they shed. Except Max was stuck with the skin he was in. He couldn't get out of it.

So he ran.

He ran until his legs ached and he was puffing. He ran until the endless loop of brotherhood-school-hunting-Knight-protect JT/Josie/James/the hunters/his family/the Brotherhood/the secret/JT/JT stopped running around in his head and it was just one sore spot up and down his body.

He ran until he collapsed onto a bus, until he staggered down the familiar driveway on a familiar farm, the place Max had spent half his childhood. He and JT…they'd been together since before he had any real memory. JT was his brother before James was in the picture, before Josie, before Ben, when it was just the two of them in all the family. JT understood Max, sometimes better than Max understood himself.

So it was strange, in some ways, that Max didn't go right to him. Didn't go in the door without knocking, because he really wasn't a visitor so much as extended family, like Caleb, like Mac. Instead, he circled around back, aiming to go to the barn, stew there a while in the presence of the animals that he found so comforting.

That's when he saw them through the window. Dean and Juliet at either end of the table, Dean roaring with laughter, slapping Ben on the back, obviously glad that his oldest son had been able to make it home for Sunday dinner. JT and James were dying, leaning forward against the table, fists pounding as tears rolled down their cheeks at a joke Max never even got to hear.

JT eventually found him in the barn, hours later. Joshua had called, and Dean had said that Max was there without even thinking. Max was always there. Always. "What'cha doing out here?" JT asked, drawing his legs up to the hayloft.

Max shrugged his shoulders, shook his head, unable to convey that first spark of recognition he'd had looking n the window. JT and James were part of a greater family, two parts of a miraculous five that had managed to keep together in the aftermath of all Hell breaking loose. They were real brothers, not just half-adopted ones like Max. They would always belong together.

And where did that leave him?

.***.

Once, when Max was little – five. Six – he'd told Ben what he needed to hear, which was probably why he and Ben grew to have an easy, comfortable relationship.

The older Winchester coming into the family had been…confusing. Strange for the two younger ones, Max and JT, who were the only ones of the youngest generation then, with Max as the oldest. And then he wasn't. And then there was this other boy who was the Guardian's son (and Max had _idolized_ the Guardian when he was young, almost as much as he idolized Uncle Caleb.) Ben came in, all shy smiles and strong, helpful hands.

He was smart, too, because the first thing he did was try to get into Max and JT's good graces. They were all of six and four, but anyone knows that if a child doesn't like something, it's usually easier to bend to their wishes than to make them see reason.

So he took them on small excursions. To the park, or the zoo, or to a parade or a fair. But mostly they just wandered around the farm, stopping for long periods for JT to pick up a stone and examine it like it was the most beautiful treasure, for Max to take off after a frog and leap on it only to have the rubbery thing leave his groping, pudgy hands at the last moment.

There was a point, a moment, less than a split second in time, when Ben turned his head, breath catching at the sight of a doe stepping daintily out of the woods. He'd been out of suburbia for a month and the wonders of nature still never ceased to amaze him. He stared at the doe for a second too long. Must have, because when he turned around the boys were gone.

Later, Max would tell the story to a captive audience of the Triad, Joshua, Juliet, Carolyn and Mac, relating the story with JT's excited little voice popping in at the most interesting part.

"It was the absolute biggest frog in the whole world. And it was almost blue! Blue! JT tried to catch it for me but he's just a baby."

"Am not!" JT would exclaim hotly. "I'm going to be five and I'm going to be a big brother, too."

"Well, you're still kind of slow, J. So when he dived he fell into the water and his foot twisted and he screamed, so I jumped in after him because daddy, you always tell me to watch out for J on account of him being a baby."

"I'm almost five!"

"But then," Max continued, ignoring the outburst, "I jumped in and I didn't know about the slime and weeds, and the water was really heavy, and JT was lots heavier than I thought he would be, too, but I couldn't get out without him or he would have been drownded. I guess I would have drownded, too, if Ben hadn't saved us."

That's when all the adults would look at the teenager who had walked into their lives a month ago and stolen all of their hearts. Ben's ears turned red and he put an embarrassed hand on the back of his neck.

"It's not like I did anything amazing." Ben said, shrugging, "They weigh, like, forty pounds."

"You're really brave." Max assured Ben with all the confidence of a six-year-old, and JT stood nodding at his side, face absolutely serious.

And Ben's grin broke across his face like a beam of sunlight. He'd been welcomed into the strange, mysterious, wonderful Brotherhood with open arms, but the words of a child made him realize that what he'd really found was home.

**Eighteen Years Before**

Once, when Joshua was old enough to know better, he'd hurt a strange newcomer with dark eyes and rumored demon blood. He knew that the other two were going too far, he probably stopped them from killing Caleb, the youngest of the four, the one they were all supposed to be watching over.

It was the moment in his life he wished he could do over again. Because of it, his ring never materialized. Because of it, he and Caleb had a relationship based on distrust, on suspicion, something that took them two decades to overcome.

Right after it happened, when Caleb was still wrapped in bandages and wary, because the Winchesters had been threatened and those little boys had wormed their way into where Caleb said his heart wasn't. When he came home from the hospital, not to Mac's home but to the farm, because Pastor Jim had been firm on his assertion that fresh air and light chores were better cures than any amount of doctors…When Caleb came, he found Joshua in the barn, bottle-feeding a calf.

It was one of Joshua's few pleasures. He would never again be in Jim's good graces, and was starting to understand that a snarky teenager and two brothers that could barely read were going to become the center of the Brotherhood, and he wouldn't really have a place at all. In the barn, though, the barn that Pastor Jim had insisted he stay in for the rest of the week, mending fences and training the horses and basically doing penance until he was released…the animals still loved him, as they loved anyone with friendly hands and ready food.

That's where Caleb found him, a boy who had contributed in the bruises and broken bones, a boy older than he, not even really a boy anymore, a man, who should know better, who should have stopped it.

It was another moment in his life that Joshua wished he could do again, looking up from the calf's heavy, warm tongue working at the bottle to see the younger boy standing there, wrapped in bandages and clothes far too big for his slight frame.

Later, he would say something like sorry. Later, much later, after Joshua grew into himself, after Caleb had pushed boundaries again and again, after some more blood had been spilt and enough time had passed since the beating…they became friends. Brothers by marriage and by choice. One of the greatest Triads in history who had one of the most capable Advisors.

But then, when they were both teenagers, the bad blood between them was like a wall suffocating thought and sound and apologies, too. Then, Joshua looked up and saw the pain written plainly across Caleb's face. Pain and betrayal.

It was only later that he realized that, by hurting Caleb on a hunt, he'd taken away the place the teenager felt safest. He'd taken away the Brotherhood he'd painted for himself, a legion of heroes like his beloved Musketeers. What had hurt Caleb most wasn't the physical blows, but the loss of his safe haven, a sense of disillusionment with the whole of the Brotherhood, and no apology could ever make that right.

It was a moment Joshua would never forget.

.***.

Once, when Joshua was way too old for it, he went to a Disney movie.

He'd been conned into it. Too injured after a hunt to get very far from the farm, he was well enough to be climbing off the walls after a week, and even an outing with the Winchester boys and Reaves was better than reading the classics Pastor Jim kept on his bookshelves.

The kids seemed way too enthusiastic about seeing the flick, a story about a dog that gets lost in a city, a story that even Joshua, with his superficial knowledge of books written before he was born, knew was lifted right off of Oliver Twist.

"Give it a rest, Sawyer." Reaves said (he was only driving because the cast Joshua had reached to his shoulder). "They don't see stuff in theaters a lot. It's cool for them."

Joshua rolled his eyes but shut his mouth. Already getting started in the PR world, he was embarrassed that he'd forgotten about Jonathan Winchester, he who loved his children but did a crappy job at showing it (like some other fathers Joshua could think of.)

And it was actually not the worst thing in the world. Dean watched out for Sam's every move, acted as guardian and disciplinarian even as he tried to get Caleb to buy tickets to Die Hard instead.

When they finally all sat down, Joshua was surprised by Caleb's deftness at taking care of the kids. Sam was watching the screen with rapt attention, stuffing fistfulls of popcorn into his mouth, but Caleb and Dean were doing a running commentary on the movie, poking fun at the story, the dialogue, the drawing…and Joshua found himself chiming in.

By the end, they'd been _shushed_ several times by other movie-goers (Sam included) and all three boys were trying desperately to stifle their laughter (which was jostling Joshua's shoulder just enough to hurt.)

"You're a bad influence." Caleb admonished Joshua as they left the theater, quirking a smile even as he hefted Sam higher on his shoulder. The kid had fallen asleep in the last ten minutes of the movie, and would probably wake up cranky wheen he realized he had not seen the end.

"I'm a bad influence?" Joshua repeated incredulously, one eyebrow creeping towards his hairline. "Pot, meet kettle."

Caleb rolled his eyes and Joshua sighed contentedly. Who'd have thought that his best day in a long time would come from hanging out with two children and Reaves?

When they got out into the brisk January air, Sam woke up. He was cranky, as Joshua had predicted, and pouted as he squirmed down Caleb's body. Dean went to hold his hand but Sam snatched it away. "No! Now I'll never ever know the end."

"Sammy…" Dean began, sounding much older than nine, but he didn't get any further before Sam turned and stalked away towards the car.

They all noticed the jeep careening around the corner, going too fast for a crowded parking lot. Caleb started forward but he was the furthest away, and Dean was just rooted to the spot…Joshua was the one who dove, cast and all, and pushed the child out of the way.

The _thud_ was loud and terrible to those who heard it, and an entire parking lot turned to see Joshua slumped over the high hood of the vehicle. Dean ran past him, going to Sam who was on the ground, staring at bloody palms and trying to decide whether to cry over it. Caleb was the one who went to Joshua.

"Goddamnit, Sawyer, you always have to make trouble for me." The man who would be the Knight muttered, eyes wide and worried as they zeroed in on the blood leaking from the corner of Joshua's mouth.

"'S why I'm around, Reaves." Joshua assured him. His teeth were red with blood, and he spit a tooth onto the asphalt. Damn. He hated it when he injured something from the neck up.

Strangely, it was this broken rib that brought the two boys closer. It didn't mend that rift that split open with the beating, but Joshua jumping to save the life of a Winchester, and Caleb taking him to the hospital and staying there all the rest of the day and most of the night, made them both realized that there may not have to be animosity between them all the time.

This wasn't to say that they wouldn't fight (that was half the fun, after all) but after seeing a bad cartoon, Joshua Sawyer and Caleb Reaves were no longer blood enemies. And this simple fact helped to shape their futures and the future of humanity itself.

.***.

Eighteen years apart, father and son struggled against death. Eighteen years apart, these two slowly but surely climbed their way back up the slippery red pit of pain towards even worse pain, even greater agony. They climbed towards certain heartbreak, towards eventual absolute failure.

But, eighteen years apart, both Joshua and Maxim Sawyer chose life and pain over the bliss and loneliness of death. And that's all that mattered in the end.

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	8. Chapter 8

_"Carry on my wayward son. There'll be peace when you are done. Lay your weary head to rest. Don't you cry no more." **Kansas**_

.***.

**Eighteen Years Ago**

By the time Joshua's fever broke, Sam had started a fire worthy of a Boy Scout merit badge and Dean had managed to prepare the food they'd brought (back when he'd just thought this was a camping trip) into a pretty decent meal. At least, he liked to think that it was the pleasant aromas that lured Joshua into the land of the living.

Caleb, for his part, never left Joshua's side. Something about their parent's strange relationship, or about the fact that he and Josh went back a couple of decades, kept him rooted at the spot, cleaning and dressing the wounds that desperately needed a hospital, trying to bring down the fever brought on by whatever concoction Sam had whipped together. But it was better than death, better than mutation into their worst nightmare, and Caleb found himself thanking his lucky stars for a high fever.

"Is he changing?" Dean asked ever so often, and Caleb would shake his head before going back to his ministrations.

"I told you." Sam said from his place by the fire, and Dean would retort that Sam hadn't seemed so damn confident a couple of hours before.

Joshua woke up to little fanfare, his blue eyes blinking open and reflecting the flickering fire for a full minute before anyone even noticed. Sam put down his camp rations and said, softly. "How you feeling, Joshua?"

"You up, Sawyer?" Caleb asked, glancing down at the older man. "If you'd waited another half hour I wouldn't owe Deuce ten bucks."

"Sorry my reawakening from a rogaru-induced coma isn't convenient for you, Reaves." Joshua's words were raspy, harsh, and pain-filled, but at least they were coherent, if barely audible.

"Sounds like yet another near-death experience didn't sweeten your personality." Caleb said dryly. His voice became gentler, though, when he noticed the shivers that rocked Joshua's body. "You cold?"

"Freezing."

Within a half-hour, Joshua was leaning against a stump softened by Sam's bag, wearing all three other hunters' coats and still shaking. He needed a hospital in a bad way, and there was little hope of him getting down the mountain under his own power. The next morning, Sam would leave at dawn to get help, and Joshua would be in a hospital by the next afternoon.

They had to get through that first night first, though, and that first night sucked.

"Hey, don't fall asleep." Dean murmured, touching Joshua's wrist.

Joshua's eyes, which had begun to roll back into his head, snapped back towards Dean. He looked pained, and the stress showed plainly on his face. He turned his head slightly so that he was looking at Caleb. "You didn't kill me."

"The remedy worked."

"Must have been close."

"Are you sorry?" Caleb's voice held a note of animosity in it, and Joshua winced as all the other memories, which had sluggishly been coming back to his pain-addled mind, suddenly returned full force. Carolyn was pregnant. He'd been here on a risky hunt alone because he was scared of fatherhood.

He held Caleb's gaze long enough for the other hunter to know that Joshua remembered everything. Long enough for Caleb to know exactly what he meant when he said, "No. I'm not sorry at all."

After all, he had a son he had to raise.

**Present Time – Two Weeks Later**

"Where's Max?" Caleb asked, glancing at the clock the hung in the kitchen. Damn. He'd been talking to Dean for hours without noticing the time. "Did he come back in?"

"No." Joshua said, casting an anxious glance at the kitchen door. "Do you think we should…?"

"He's been cooped up for two weeks, let him enjoy the great outdoors while he can." Dean said placating, and then called, loudly, "JT!"

"Ahh…" Said Caleb, tapping the side of his nose. "Now I see how the Guardian has eyes and ears everywhere. He gets his sons to do the dirty work. "

"Damn straight." Dean muttered as JT came loping down the stairs. He fitted a more serious face on, raising an eyebrow at his middle son. "There a particular reason why you're not with Max?"

JT, in turn, furrowed his brow. "Am I supposed to be?"

"Seeing as the two of you are joined at the hip," Caleb drawled, "That would be a 'yes'."

JT shrugged, avoiding Joshua's gaze uncomfortably. He still didn't feel right around the Advisor, even though he knew that the older Sawyer didn't blame him for Max's near-death experience. Mac would say he was avoiding Joshua out of his own residual guilt, and Mac would be right. "He hasn't been alone since before we went camping. I thought I'd just give him some space."

"So he told you buzz off." Caleb surmised, "And is now wandering around the farm - the one that we know can be penetrated by demons and other nasty baddies - all by his lonesome?"

"I thought the farm was safe now." JT said, concern creeping into his voice as he turned to his father for confirmation. "Right?" The Guardian nodded, still staring at JT, waiting. The young man sighed, rubbing his good hand absentmindedly across the mostly-healed black eye his best friend had given him weeks ago. "You want me to find him?"

He turned before any of them could answer audibly, wondering for the briefest instant why _he'd_ gotten stuck with this job. It seemed like the whole world had moved into the old farmhouse after the attack – Josie and Mary were in the living room with Mac, and the old man was learning about the hottest gossip amongst tween girls; James was with Uncle Sam in the tomb, and Sam was trying to teach JT's brother something about his powers so that the attack that had made him scream so much out by the lake couldn't happen again; even Ben was around, packing for the last time since his flight out to his new Fellowship was the very next morning.

So, JT supposed, he might be the best candidate for this job (seeing as he wasn't caught up in anything important.) Didn't mean he wanted it.

He and Max were best friends for life, and that's not just one of those corny sayings kids put in each other's year books. He could talk to Max about things he would never talk to his brothers or father about, talk about insecurities and furtive desires and deepest wishes that anyone else would brush aside but best friends are obligated to take seriously.

But then he'd seen how far that friendship went. Yeah, he knew that as the next Triad they'd have to have each other's backs. Yes, they'd taken turns getting hurt on hunts before. But never before had it been this voluntary thing, where Max had stepped up and said "take me" without letting the others put in their two cents.

So for the past two weeks it had been JT avoiding Max, or Max ducking his head whenever JT walked into a room, which was different, strange. JT was so used to having Max _there_ for him that to suddenly be in this weird Cold War made the whole world seem like it was turned on its head.

Scouting out Max was not hard. Just about everyone went to the barn when they needed some space, and the loft that they used to play in so often has children had a tell-tale pair of dangling feet hanging off of it.

JT climbed the ladder, rested his head on his arms as he looked at Max for a moment before the other boy knew he was there.

Max looked awful. Bruises were in their last stages of healing (and why was it that they always looked worse at the end? Yellow and green and blue?) and there was a bandage wrapped around his head, stark white and glowing in the semi-darkness. JT sighed, and Max whipped around at the noise, fists clenched for a fight.

"I come in peace," JT said, hands up. "Everyone just wanted to make sure you're okay."

"I haven't started spontaneously bleeding to death." Max said, which isn't really an answer, and JT recognized that. He moved closer, closer, until he and Max were side-by-side. There was something between them, something in the air, in their hearts, that stopped this from being an easy interaction between two best friends.

"I'm sorry, Max." JT said. Mostly because whenever something went wrong, JT always played peacemaker. He apologized on everyone's behalf. But also because he felt more than a little guilty for the scars his friend would carry for the rest of his life. "It shouldn't have been your responsibility to do that for me and James."

"I wanted to." Max said, his tone so surprised that JT had to believe him. "Really, J, I don't know what I'd be doing if I was in your shoes…if you were the one who'd nearly…whatever. I'd probably be hunting. Alone. In the dark."

JT smirked at that. "Sounds like you." He bumped his friend's shoulder with his, then pulled away hurriedly when Max hissed in pain. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I forgot you had a bruise there."

"Just assume I have bruises everywhere." Max said, "But it's okay, J. Really."

"What's wrong?" JT asked after a minute of quiet. "I mean, if you don't hate me for not stopping you from nearly dying, then why else have you been avoiding me all week?"

"You've been avoiding me, too." Max pointed out.

"Only because I thought you hated my guts." And he'd been too chicken to find out if his assumption was correct. Even the possibility that Max would hate him forever for the position he'd put the other boy in by the lake had been enough to drive JT away. But he was here now. "Something else is up, man."

Max shrugged, looking out into the barn, and suddenly JT remembered so many other times it was just him and Max in this loft, him and Max talking late into the night about nothing in particular, him and Max… "It's like…I don't know how to explain it, J. It's like I just had a taste of what the rest of my life is going to be."

"What do you mean?"

Max sighed. He didn't want to get into this, not now, not with his best friend, but the feeling that had started when he woke up to his father's face in the hospital had only grown in his fortnight of convalescing. "I never really wanted to go to college. I'm not excited about it like everyone in my class was. I just want to be a Knight, because I think I can be a really good one…but what if my whole life is just one demon after another? One crisis after another?"

"Then you'll have an interesting life." JT said firmly. That's what he told himself every time he thought of the sacrifices he was making to be in the Brotherhood – that he would have more experiences in his life than most people could have in a hundred lifetimes.

"That's what the Guardian and Caleb have been saying since we were old enough to spar, JT, but look at Caleb – he doesn't have a family, and Lidia ran out on Uncle Sam because she couldn't hack this life."

"You're already thinking about settling down? You getting soft on me?" But as soon as the words were out of his mouth JT realized what Max was getting at. They'd always known that their lives wouldn't be normal, but his injuries had been a wake-up call to Max.

"If that demon was the start of another war, what the hell am I going to do if I can't protect you and James through it all, huh? Believe it or not, I've had some sentimental thoughts about us growing old together."

JT nodded, put a hand on Max's shoulder very, very gently so as not to disturb the bruises that lay there. "Me too, man. And we'll do it."

"How do you know?" JT couldn't remember the last time he'd seen Max like this – vulnerable, seeking assurance. "How do you know it's going to be okay?"

"Because…." JT began, groping for words, "Because….there are ties that bind us, Max. You and me and James…we're all a part of something bigger. Our families. The Brotherhood. Humanity. And I like to believe those ties are stronger than whatever evil monsters the world throws at us."

"I hope you're right, JT." Max said, his eyes glinting silver, bronze, gold in the dying light. His mouth was pressed in a hard line, but he looked like he was trying to grope for the optimism his friend possessed. "God, JT, I hope you're right."

**.**

**The End**

**.**

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